Dimitri Weber on Australia’s first luxury perfume house and the Kylie Minogue effect

April 1, 2026·28 min·2 clips

Australia exports 90% of the world's sandalwood, yet no one knows it's the source for global perfumes.

Australia supplies the first note. The program puts fragrance inside a business conversation about native plants, provenance and export strength, without making the pitch feel too shiny. The number does land. With 24,000 native plant species in view, Tom Edwards gives Australia’s botany real weight. Sandalwood carries much of the argument. The guest says Australia is the world’s biggest sandalwood export country and that most sandalwood in department-store fragrances comes from Australia. The name matters as well. He wanted something earthy for the fragrance house because, as he sees it, Australia is tied to land and soil. Joseph Banks gives him a useful comparison. The guest likens his work with oils to Banks bringing Pacific plants and shrubs back to Europe. He keeps the comparison small by calling them his little oils, but the point is clear enough: Australian essential oils can travel into European retail on their own terms. Travel shaped the early years too. In the brand’s first five or six years, he says, moving across Australia was central to finding ingredients and understanding the size of the country. Now suppliers come to him with flowers, woods and essential oils, asking whether a perfume house in Australia can do something with them. That shift says a lot. The company has become a commercial translator for materials looking for a way into fragrance. France still hangs over perfume, of course. But the guest argues that fashion has become more geographically open, and fragrance can follow. The episode then moves to Paris, where Sandra Mielenhausen of Plak talks about chocolate with the same interest in simplicity, mastery and quality. Luxury stays quiet here. Across perfume and chocolate, the conversation prefers craft and provenance over gloss.

As heard by us

A polished founder-led look at Australian fragrance and Parisian chocolate as luxury businesses built on place, materials, and simplicity.

Dimitri Weber makes a clear business case for Australian perfume: a country with extraordinary native flora and major sandalwood exports has more to offer luxury fragrance than borrowed European cues. The strongest section is about how geography becomes brand identity.

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Why you'd press play

You want an Australian founder story where sandalwood feels like a map.

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